Tangled Up In You
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: And suddenly it feels as if the pieces of a life he thought he'd never have again are fitting back together.


**A/N: Flipside of another fic. Again, hints of Annihilated if you want to look. SVU isn't mine. **

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He finds it almost amusing that they can just lie there without saying anything.

It used to be that he wanted to talk, afterwards, but this time, no words will come, and he has the feeling that he knows why. Three out of four kids are home, and the door wasn't locked. Ordinarily, that might have been awkward, except for they have no idea that he's there, and it was already late when they dropped by. He has the feeling that he doesn't want to talk, because he doesn't want to let them in on the fact that he's there. It is enough for him to have seen them after going out to Staten Island and dealing with the latest crime scene.

He wonders if it will still be enough when the sun comes up and he has to leave.

Olivia has no idea where he is. He didn't see fit to let her in on it, because honestly, it's none of her business. He knows she'll ask, and he'll probably tell her that he dropped by home, but other than that, he will tell her nothing. They are partners at work, and best friends if one cares to push it farther, but she is not the one that carries his heart in the palm of her hand. There are things about him that she doesn't need to know, and won't know. Just like there are things about her that he doesn't know, and won't know. It goes both ways, he thinks, and it works like that.

Some things are better left unsaid. It's been that way for them for the past eight years.

And life is such that it will stay that way, because it's none of her business who he sleeps with, and damn it, it's not like he's been bed-hopping across the city for the past two years, anyway. It is the one thing that he hasn't thought of in all that time, and he's slightly amused by the fact that he's thinking about it right now, of all times. Random thoughts come at random times, and this is definitely one of those. A life that he thought had been completely taken away from him suddenly seems to be fitting back together, falling back into place.

He'd meant it when he said he was ready to come home.

Taking things for granted and then having it taken away again is definitely one of life's nastier lessons, and he'd have preferred not to have learned it at all, but there he had it. Nearly losing his job and being indicted by a grand jury had pretty much scared him into realizing that nothing lasted forever, and it wasn't the only reason why he'd come back. No…there were plenty of other reasons, and he knew it, but they were reasons that he hadn't managed to figure out yet. But they were there. And sooner or later it would hit him that he didn't really need any other reason but his heart.

Damned if that's not a good enough reason for anything, Elliot thinks, amused.

For all appearances, Kathy is fast asleep beside him. It's almost like normal. He's the one that lies awake thinking, and wanting to talk, and she's the one who falls asleep. A role reversal, he'd said, once, poking at her about it. I'm supposed to be the one who falls asleep. She had laughed at him, then, and said that if he looked at it the right way, it was stereotyping, assuming that all guys fell asleep afterwards, while the women stay awake. He'd thought about it for a moment and then admitted that he had to agree with her on that point, but couldn't she just stay awake once, and talk with him?

This time, he sees no problem with her being asleep, because he doesn't want to talk.

Actually, he does, but at the same time, he doesn't, which is strange, because he wants to know what this is, and what exactly they're going to do now that this has happened. He thinks briefly of a case that he and Olivia just handled a few weeks ago, and wonders if maybe she's only doing this to throw it back in his face later on. Wonders briefly if this is just something she's going to use to call him out in front of the squad, accusing him of something that never happened, because honestly, he hadn't really wanted to leave. But he would have if she'd told him that she didn't want him there, and she hadn't.

Maybe she's not the only one trying to fix things, he muses.

Granted, he hasn't exactly been trying all that hard himself. He signed the divorce papers, after all. But he doesn't know what she did with them and doesn't want to know in case she really did give it over to whatever lawyer she's got, because he knows he doesn't have one himself. Never saw the need. He's always intended to give her whatever she asked for if this actually goes through after all, and he knows she wouldn't ask for more than he can give. They'd been together long enough to know what the other was capable of doing.

Well…not really, Elliot thinks, then, but she doesn't need to know that.

The sheets are all tangled up. He wonders when this happened, because they weren't like that before, and figures that maybe he just hadn't noticed. Either way, they're set so that they're covering the both of them, so if anyone were to burst in come a normal hour of the morning, it wouldn't be that awkward. Well…it'd be awkward, but not as much as it might have been considering other circumstances. Elliot mulls this over for a long moment and then decides that maybe, this is the way things are supposed to be, and he's supposed to be there, here, and now, in this moment, because he really can't imagine having to be somewhere else, until the alarm clock goes off.

The one good thing about the sheets, though, is that it puts them closer to each other.

And it's what he needs, too, he thinks. To be close to someone. Close to her in particular. To something familiar, something he's missed, and he wonders for a moment if maybe this could be what she's needed, too. A chance to reconnect, get to know each other again, though, admittedly, there hasn't been all that much conversation, but there they had it. He turns his head and gives her a sideways look, noting how the orange lights from outside fall directly onto her face, making her look somewhat strange but at the same time, serving to remind him just how beautiful he's always thought she is.

Maybe I'm thinking too much, he muses. Maybe this is exactly what it is.

But what it is, he's not all that sure of. What he does know is that it's a lot less confusing than everything else. He's home, in his own bed, for once, and the kids will be up in a few hours, and they might be surprised to see him, but she won't be, and for the moment, that's all that matters to him. All that seems to matter at all, about anything, is that she knows that this is where he wants to be, and there isn't anything pushing him to be there but himself. He wonders, then, if it's possible for him to be too tangled up in her.

It only takes a minute for him to decide that it's not.


End file.
